


Merrily Shall I Live Now

by DaughterofProspero



Category: SHAKESPEARE William - Works, The Tempest - Shakespeare
Genre: Body Horror, Bugs & Insects, Magic, POV Third Person, Spirits
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-16
Updated: 2016-01-16
Packaged: 2018-05-14 05:55:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5731876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DaughterofProspero/pseuds/DaughterofProspero
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"This blue-eyed hag was hither brought with child<br/>And here was left by the sailors. Thou, my slave,<br/>As thou report'st thyself, wast then her servant;<br/>And, for thou wast a spirit too delicate<br/>To act her earthy and abhorr'd commands,<br/>Refusing her grand hests, she did confine thee..."</p>
<p>Ariel has many duties - babysitting one of them in the early days. An afternoon with small Miranda as they wander deeper into the island's forest reveals a haunt Ariel thought long gone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Merrily Shall I Live Now

“Ready or not, here I come” calls Ariel.

The forest is speckled with late-afternoon sunlight dancing on the shifting leaves. Too beautiful a day for little Miranda to be content with pouring over her father’s giant tomes and making up stories from the words she understands. Today is also one of those days where Prospero seals himself from the life outside his makeshift home to study his primitive alchemy. Oftentimes he emerges late in the evening muttering about how he should be careful what he wished for back in his homeland where there was never enough time to himself. Now he has little else. Though he delights in watching his daughter grow, he cannot always keep vigil.

Thusly, Ariel learned the word “nanny”.

When the water is too blue to resist, Ariel shrinks the waves Miranda insists on running into, chubby legs ringed in sea-foam. When rain pours down in diagonal sheets, Miranda takes it upon herself to teach the spirit chess. When it is later in the day, and the skies are clear, they play hide-and-seek.

Ariel has accepted that Miranda prefers to hide. When the girl first explained the game, round one lasted nearly two hours. She took pride in her seeking skills and coming up unsuccessful caused her mouth to blossom into a comical pout. After finally admitting defeat, she yelled for Ariel to come out, only to see the air spirit materialize in front of a honey-suckle bush not five feet away. It was then the rule was added: “You’re not allowed to turn invisible”.

Meandering through the wood a couple of inches above the ground, Ariel lackadaisically begins to search. While the island is not enormous, Miranda is small and any hollow log or half-formed ditch could easily house her. They’ve been playing for a few hours now, moving deeper into the forest meaning the trees are even more dense and the ground less even: More dangerous ground, but more hiding spots – the latter all that really matters to Miranda. Wherever she’s hiding this time, she’s doing a remarkable job of keeping quiet. The sun continues to sink.

A fine spray of mist breaks free from Ariel’s form in an uneasy shudder. This part of the forest is older. Dying. Familiar. Picking up speed, Ariel continues, wafting urgently through and in-between increasingly gnarled branches until the sickly underbrush gives way to a rocky clearing.

_Bad. Wrong. Leave. Go. Bad._

Words in every language known to nature erupt in Ariel’s mind. Messages rise from the jaundiced moss, to the sour berries all coalescing into a single discordant pulse in Ariel’s head. Ready to fly backwards, dissolve into tiny droplets and summon a south wind back to safety, the shuffle of linen on bark joins the chaotic chorus. Miranda is here. Ariel splits into separate miasmas, hurriedly flitting under bushes, around rocks, high above for a bird’s-eye view. In less than two seconds Miranda is found but if Ariel had a human heart it would skip a beat. Nestled in a hole at the base of a massive pine tree in the centre of the clearing hides the girl, tiny hand clapped over her mouth to keep from giggling at her cleverness.

_Bad. Bad. Bad._

The voices still pound, Ariel’s corporal form (now returned to one being) flickers in time to their warning. It all comes flooding back:

It was never truly forgotten, the feeling of a single cursed seed sprouting within you, eating you, transforming you from the inside out. Stretching your limbs into ghastly shapes, bending and breaking, slowing but never stopping. The scratch of needles burrowing through what once was something akin to skin. Sap forcing itself down your throat and hardening. Suffocating for twelve long years but never dying.

Stuck so deep in the ground you forget what it’s like to fly, unable even to turn your eyes skyward as they have been blinded by bark. Only the sounds of bird’s beaks ceaselessly hammering away, the cries of worried sprites who can do nothing. You pray for a merciful cremation but Sycorax only laughs and rips a limb off just to enjoy your pain.

Ariel remembers and cannot move.

A startled shriek comes from within the evil tree and out climbs the panicked toddler, pawing at her head. Hopping about wildly, not understanding: It is this new horror that brings Ariel back to the present. With revulsion that causes the blue-ish form to ripple again, Ariel realizes what the tree has done.

Bugs.

Centipedes, millipedes, ants, beetles, crickets, emerging from sticky amber gobs that tangle in the unruly mop of brown hair. The sap within the tree – whose taste Ariel knows so well – has released its prey onto the unsuspecting girl for daring to exist. A cold wind cackles through the gruesome branches of Sycorax’s handiwork.

Escaping the grip of immobilizing fear that to this day roots Ariel stock still, the fairy concentrates on a single strong summer breeze. Harnessing a wanton gust passing through the underbrush, and a second, still briny from the shore; Ariel billows into a focused sail, flying to the rescue of the frightened girl.

In a split second, dozens of insects are launched into air and the itching and crawling stops. Miranda squeezes her eyes shut against the sudden whoosh that nearly blasts her hair flat out behind her. She lurches backward a little, not having been prepared, and already off-balance from her spastic stumbling.

Before she can register relief she is whisked off her feet and spirited away from the clearing, the forest blurring into a wall of shifting greens. She laughs in delight, reaching an arm out to feels the leaves paint her fingertips with dew. When they break through the treeline and Ariel places her on the sand, she claps and jumps joyously squealing “again, again!”

When they enter the hut Prospero and Miranda now know as home, it’s nearly dark and Miranda is bursting with excitement, calling for her father to tell him of the day’s adventures. As she chatters through dinner, Prospero patiently listening, Ariel wanders. Swooping idly among the clouds and diving through whitecaps, racing around the circumference of the island.

In the middle of Ariel’s thirty-seventh lap, Prospero’s voice echoes across the surf calling his servant back. He demands a less naïve account of the afternoon, which Ariel delivers. Prospero’s brow creases, and he thumbs a knoll on his staff as he does when deep in thought. A rogue wave laps at his crudely sandaled feet but he pays it no mind.

“Do not let my daughter near there again,” he says. “As for the tree…I should have burned it as soon as you were released. It’ll have to be done tomorrow.” It’s unclear whether he’s simply thinking aloud or giving an order directly to Ariel who questions how to proceed.

“Will that be all, master?” Ventures the servant

“Hm? Yes, Ariel, that’s all.” Spirit dismissed, Prospero turns and treks back towards his house, leaving footsteps and a trail of infinite ellipses in the sand behind him.

Alone again, Ariel begins lap thirty-eight, determined to remember freedom.

**Author's Note:**

> I liked the idea that when Ariel was released from the tree, it didn't just disappear. It's still there, a remnant of Sycorax's magic.   
> Speaking of magic, boy is that weird to write, eh? Gotta make your own rules 'n shit. And describe it properly. Fun stuff.  
> (Also liked the idea of Ariel babysitting. Hehehe)
> 
> Thanks for reading.


End file.
